


Before I Return To Dirt

by Atlantis_Jackson



Category: We're Alive, We’re Alive - A “Zombie” Story of Survival (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, I'm Bad At Tagging, JOURNAL ENTRY, M/M, Puck might cry a little bit, Robbins and Muldoon, mention of zombies, post death stuff, post sex stuff but nothing explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 22:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9205421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlantis_Jackson/pseuds/Atlantis_Jackson
Summary: After everyone returns to the colony, Puck still has nightmares about what happened at the jail. He remembers a request that Robbins made a while back and finds his journal.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This starts out written in third person with Puck's POV, but when he starts reading the journal it shifts to first person Robbins POV. 
> 
> Also, the title is from a song called Return To Dirt by an amazing up and coming artist by the name of Jason Aaron Coons. That man is going places and you can trust me when I say you're gonna want to be able to say you knew him when! He has many more than three songs but that's all he currently has up on soundcloud.

_GREG! GREG! Oh shit, no nononono no Greg!..... We’re not leaving him…….. No man I’m getting you out of here, I got you……. Come on man BREATHE! Breathe man, come on!..... Greg! Don’t leave me man, come on…_

Puck woke with a start and sat up, the scream of horror that had been bubbling up his throat turned into a grunt of pain as his healing limbs reminded him that moving that quickly wasn’t a good plan these days. He covered his eyes with his right hand, willing away the tears that were threatening to fall. The nightmare was getting to be too much. He could push the memories away during his waking hours, either with the mini DVD player or Saul’s DS, or people visiting him, but when he went to sleep he was helpless. Once his eyes were closed for the night he began reliving the worst day of his life; hearing the sounds of his friends screams as they were picked off one by one in the hallways of that fucking jail. The tears running down Robbins’ face as he tried like hell to save Muldoon were probably the thing that haunted him the most. He heard it all in his head, even if he wasn’t really thinking about it, like it was a recording on loop in the back of his mind. He heard the fear in Tony’s voice when he realized that Greg wasn’t standing beside him anymore, the way his voice broke when Greg told him to leave him, and the utter heartbreak as he put Greg down in the hallway and started CPR, yelling at him to breathe, not to leave him. 

Puck inhaled deeply and pushed the breath out with a groan, he couldn’t take this anymore. He reached for the notebook on his nightstand and flipped it open to a clean page. They hadn’t really been keeping records as much as they used to, and he had never done it as much as Michael’s original group had, but he had found it kind of freeing as he spent weeks and weeks on top of weeks and weeks in a bed, first at the colony, then at Dunbar and eventually back at the colony after the last battle with the Mallers.

“The nightmare is getting worse,” he wrote. “It has me waking up multiple times at night. So much so that I’m awake more than I’m asleep, and I’m afraid to go back to sleep because of the pain I feel in my heart when I wake up. They’re gone.

I remembered something last night but I didn’t do anything about it today because I don’t really want to go there yet. Right before we headed out to start hunting for the zombie nest, Robbins caught me and pulled me aside. He told me that I was one of the people he trusted most and he wanted to tell me something important. He said he’d written something in his journal that he wanted me to read in the event that he died. Of course I promised him that I would, but then I pushed it out of my mind. Despite all the fat jokes we all made at him, Robbins was a highly trained soldier and there was no way he was going to die. Not with the rest of us being trained soldiers as well. 

He told me where the journal was and that I didn’t have to worry about it unless he was dead.  
“Just be careful with it,” Robbins had told me. “And make sure it’s protected. It’s something really special and I don’t want it to be mocked or made fun of.”

I told him I’d do what he asked. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, but after the events at the jail… all the tears, and bending that rebar like a fuckin’ superhero… I think I have an idea. I just really ain’t looking forward to going to his house. His death is still too fresh, but I think maybe reading his journal is the only way to calm my mind. I guess we’ll see.”

He closed his journal and put it back on the nightstand before strapping the walking boot around his left leg and heading out to Robbins’ house.

~*~

Puck’s heart ached a bit as he walked into Robbins’ house. Bits of Tony’s personality were obvious in the house that had once been decorated by someone else; someone long since dead.  
He made his way through the house toward the office, memories flooding his mind as he walked.

_“Of course you picked a single story house, Robbins,” Muldoon had joked the first time they all gathered there for a game night. “Heaven forbid you have to walk up some stairs.”_

_“Ah suck it, Muldoon. You’re just jealous that you didn’t find this place first.” Robbins had responded._

_“Yeah, it obviously belonged to a bachelor,” Carl chimed in. “You know, someone who couldn’t get his dick wet unless he paid for it.”_

_“Calm down, Carl,” Puck soothed, “He probably didn’t know this was your place.”_

_“Yeah and fuck you too, Sam!”_

_“HEY! I said don’t call me that! It’s Puck! Or Corporal, but never, ever Sam, Sammy or even Samuel. Got it!?_

Puck sighed at the empty feeling that memory gave him. Those three men were the closest friends he had since the fucking zombies overran the world. They understood each other like no others. Vic was starting to earn a closer place to Puck but he had a long road to travel, and he’d probably never be as close as Robbins, Muldoon and Carl. Puck missed those guys in a way he hadn’t felt since his best friend died at the young age of fifteen.

Puck shook the memories away and opened the drawers of Robbins’ desk until he found a notebook with an envelope on top of it. The envelope had Puck’s name on it. He picked it up and opened it, seeing his friends messy hand writing brought a fresh flare of pain, but he pushed past it and read the letter.

_Puck,  
If you’re reading this you’re either a breaking and entering asshole or I’m dead. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume I’m dead. Quick, look up to make sure I’m not standing in the door and if I am… run!_

Puck couldn’t help the sad laugh that came out of his mouth as he actually did look up at the door. His eyes burned when he saw exactly what he knew he would… an empty doorway. He sniffed and looked back at the letter.

_First of all, let me tell you that, even though I don’t know the circumstances that led to my death, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t blame you even if I were still alive. I don’t doubt for a minute that you did everything in your power to keep me alive. You’re good at what you do, and a lot of times, I don’t make keeping me alive easy. Whatever the situation, I know you did what you could and for that I’m grateful. Don’t feel any guilt, brother, it wasn’t your fault._

_Secondly, and the real reason for this letter and journal:_

_I haven’t known you long, in the grand scheme of things anyway, but you’re a good friend and an excellent soldier. I trust you with my life; I’d trust you with my family’s lives as well… if it came to that. That’s why I want to make sure you’re aware of all the facts. I trust you with them. I want them to be known but I have to wait for the right time, and if I die before that time comes, I need you to take care of it for me. Please do it carefully, there are feelings involved that could be hurt, and I don’t want that.  
Take care, man._

_You’re friend,_

_Tony_

Puck wiped an escaped tear off his face and picked up the notebook. He tucked the letter in the front cover and carried them both out to the living room and sat down on the couch. His leg was beginning to throb, he wasn’t even really supposed to be on it much yet, but this was necessary. He sat down and lifted his left leg up onto the couch and opened the notebook. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was determined to get through this and fulfill his promise to Robbins.

He took a deep breath and looked down at the first page.

~*~

I’ll start out with a little back story to ease you into this. I was at home in Colorado Springs when the outbreak happened. I made my way to Buckley Air Force Base as soon as I could to hook up with my team. Almost everyone was gone but the higher ups that were left had decided that rather than have a few soldiers here and a few there they needed to choose a location and have everyone there. They’d contacted some of the other bases and everyone decided that Fort Irwin was the place to be. So off we went. I don’t know what I was expecting when I got there… no, that’s not true, I know exactly what I was expecting. I thought the place would be teeming with soldiers. I thought it would be organized and planned out and that between all the branches of military, we’d get this situation sorted in no time and get back to life as it was. As you know, that didn’t happen. I got assigned to a Blackhawk team and missions started happening. Muldoon and I having both worked on Blackhawk teams before just kind of synched up almost immediately, we just seemed to know what the other needed done. Time went on and we lost teams and individuals left and right and then we secured Boulder and started shipping out civilians. But in the middle of all that, something amazing happened. I can’t even really believe it myself and I’m living in it. It started out as a few words in the halls, then moved to meals together in the chow hall and eventually led to sneaking around after hours for a few minutes here and there. It was probably helped along by the fact that we spent so much time together on the Blackhawk. It’s actually kind of funny to think about, but somehow, in the middle of the god damned zombie apocalypse, Muldoon and I fell in love. We were sent to Boulder with some of the other soldiers as protection for the civilians as well as to train new soldiers. What I liked about that was that it was much more lax than at the base. Greg and I had more freedom, it was amazing. We found a little house, made it our own. Life was almost normal with the obvious exception of the living dead walking around outside the barrier. 

_Tony smiled and hummed when he felt arms wrap around him from behind, warm lips laying a soft kiss on the back of his neck. “Good morning,” he said as he flipped the pancake he was working on cooking to perfection._

_“Morning sunshine,” Greg smiled and rested his head between Tony’s shoulder blades._

_Tony slid the pancake out of the pan and onto the plate with the others then turned around in Greg’s arms, planting a kiss on his lips as he pulled him closer. Greg was still sleep warm and smelled like fabric softener. Tony smiled against his lover’s lips, “damn it Muldoon, you were awesome last night. It was good to not have to sneak around.”_

_Greg hummed and nodded his agreement. “Doesn’t mean you had to be quite so vocal,” he chuckled._

_“You’re probably right, but I was excited and you were great.”_

_Greg laughed and broke away from Tony’s embrace to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Well, I aim to please,” he said._

_“Trust me, you’ve got great aim,” Tony said as he put the plate of pancakes on the table._

Our first few days in Boulder were almost like a honeymoon. We got to know each other in ways we hadn’t had the opportunity to before. Not just sexually but in a deeply personal way. There were mornings when we’d just lay in bed, wrapped up in each other and talk about what our lives were like before, or what they’d be like if we met and there weren’t zombies running around. We only got a few days of rest before we had to get to work. There were a lot of zombie bodies lying around Boulder and everyone banded together to get rid of them.

_“Oh God, this is horrible,” Greg almost gagged as he and Tony lifted another body onto the dolly they’d taken from the nearby grocery store._

_“Not as bad as all these bodies rotting under the summer sun,” Tony replied. He took his gloves off, fished a cloth out of his back pocket and mopped the sweat off his brow._

_Greg removed his gloves as well, walked around the dolly and wrapped his arms around Tony’s middle._  
“Hey,” he said softly, “let’s take a break.” He took Tony by the hand and led him toward a nearby porch.   
“Sit with me baby,” he suggested as he sank down onto the swing. 

_Tony sat down and draped an arm over Greg’s shoulders, pulling him in close. Greg leaned in close, reached for Tony’s other hand and started running a finger lightly in random patterns over his palm. Tony had come to realize that this was what Greg did when he was thinking._

_“What’s up?” He asked._

_“Did you know anyone in Boulder?” Greg asked thoughtfully._

_“Ah,” Tony said with a soft chuckle, realizing what was bothering Greg. “Not really. I think a few guys I went to grade school with moved to Boulder, but I doubt they’d have still been here. Even if they were, and if they’re laying on the pavement out there somewhere I doubt I’d recognize them. Not to mention, the chances that I’d be the one to come across them are pretty slim. Boulder’s a pretty big place.”_

_“You didn’t have family here did you?”_

_“No, I didn’t have any family left. What about you?”_

_“My parents retired to Hawaii years ago. I have no idea if this is going on there or if they’re safe or…” he trailed off and snuggled closer to Tony, resting his nose close to his neck as they rocked gently back and forth on the porch swing._

_“Maybe it’s better not to know,” Tony suggested as he pulled Greg closer to him. Greg was a lot clingier than Tony was, but it wasn’t a bother. Tony actually liked it when Greg got like this, taking comfort from Tony when he needed to ground himself. And being separated from the other groups on clean up detail afforded them the opportunity to be close like this. “That way you can just go on thinking they’re fine. Isn’t that better than knowing that they’re not?”_

_“I suppose. I just wish I’d had the chance to call them before all this happened. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to my parents since last Christmas.”_

_“I’m sorry,” Tony planted a soft kiss to the top of Greg’s sweaty head and just held him. Taking comfort himself. He loved these moments, feeling Greg’s firm solid body pressing against his own larger softer one._

_They were quiet for awhile, just gently swinging back and forth, “Later,” Greg began, “We should come back here and get this swing for our porch. This is very relaxing.”_

_“We’ll stop by and get it after we finish cleaning this sector. I’ll get the hooks out of the ceiling too. We’ll be relaxing on our own porch by tomorrow night.”_

_“Tomorrow night?”_

_“Yup, there’s no way I’ll be screwing hooks into the ceiling of the porch after cleaning up bodies all day. My plan for this afternoon is a shower, dinner, and then wrapping myself around you for as long as possible and then sleeping.”_

_“So I rank after dinner huh?” Greg joked._

_“Unless you want me to run out of energy after I get off but before you get off.”_

_“Ha, no that’s okay. Dinner first. I’m starving anyway.”_

You probably haven’t figured this out, but Greg and I have code speak. We figured it out early on in our relationship. It’s fine to call each other pet names when we’re alone; baby, sweetheart, and so on, but when we’re around other people we stick to calling each other Robbins and Muldoon rather than Greg and Tony. The jabs we make toward each other are our sweet nothings. His fat jokes to me and my mom jokes to him are secret ways of saying I love you when we’re in public. But our favorite way to say it is to say “I got you,” because we do. We always do.

It’s not that we’re ashamed of our love, we absolutely are not. I would love to stand on one of the towers and shout out to the world, living and dead, that I am in love with Gregory Thomas Muldoon. But we’re soldiers in a highly stressful situation, surrounded by civilians who are stressed and scared. People expect soldiers to be a certain way; it makes them comfortable and less likely to question instructions. If an undoubtedly straight soldier shouts at a group of people to take cover, they do it without question. The same order is shouted in the same situation by an openly gay soldier, regardless of how strong and capable… they don’t move quite as quickly. Humanity has been shaved down to triple digits, it’s very important that we keep these people safe and alive. If that means Greg and I have to hide the fact that we’re in love, so be it, at least for now. Maybe I’m just being silly, maybe they’d accept it and be nothing but supportive, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Once we’re safe, once we’ve got this thing handled, once their lives aren’t going to come down to how fast they react to an order, we’ll tell them. But this is okay with us for now, he and I both understand why we need to keep our relationship private. Even in Boulder, we kept our house separated from the majority of the people. Everyone tended to want to live in clusters, Greg and I lived on the next street over from anyone else.

_“You two should move closer to the rest of us,” Mrs. Williams said as she made her way toward Greg and Tony. The entire town was celebrating the completion of the zombie body clean up by having a party in town hall. Food and alcohol were free flowing and the music was blaring._

_“And why is that ma’am?” Tony asked as he plucked a cracker topped with spray cheese off the nearby snack table._

_“Just because,” She smiled and winked at him as she made her way back out into the crowd._

_Greg stifled a laugh by sucking down what was left in his Champaign flute._

_“Ah, shut up Muldoon,” Tony reprimanded gently._

_“Looks like you’ve got an offer on the table.”_

_“Yeah well I’m not interested in anyone but your mom.”_

_Greg chuckled and tossed his plastic flute in the trash can nearby. “We’ll I’m heading out. Don’t keep my mom waiting too long, tubby.”_

_Tony nodded and moved further into the crowd, slightly bopping along to the music._

_Two hours later Greg and Tony were lying in their bed, naked and sated. Greg had his head pillowed on Tony’s shoulder as he ran his fingers gently over Tony’s stomach._

_“I’m glad the cleanup is done,” Greg said absentmindedly._

_“Mhm,” Tony hummed sleepily, Greg’s soft fingers always had this effect on him. “Hey,” Tony said, pulling Greg’s hand off his stomach and putting their hands together, palm to palm. He loved feeling the difference in their skins, Greg’s soft fingers against Tony’s calloused ones. Greg’s hands that held the controls of their Blackhawk against Tony’s hands that pulled the trigger on the mini-gun mounted in the back. He laced their fingers together and planted a kiss to Greg’s forehead. “I love you.”_

_Greg smiled and lifted his head to look Tony in the eye. “I love you too, baby.” He leaned up and kissed Tony’s mouth. Soft at first but it quickly deepened. Greg shifted until he was lying on top of Tony and their tongues got involved as both men’s bodies became interested in round two._

It was good. We were safe, new soldiers were being trained; new civilians were coming in all the time. It really looked like we were handling the outbreak and maybe even pulling ahead of it. Of course, you know how Kimmet was; he only let us in Boulder know what he thought we needed to know. We were cut off from you guys, knew very little about what you guys were doing. Until Michael showed up and started calling to ask about his friends and feeding us bits of Intel, we were pretty much in the dark. You know what happened next. They needed Muldoon and I to look for that downed Chinook, and… just one. That was all it took to turn our lives upside down… again. You know what all happened after that so there’s no point for me to go over it again here. Needless to say, Greg and I didn’t get a whole lot of alone time after that. Not that there was time for anything other than surviving. But hey, we survived. We did what had to be done, all of us, yourself included. 

Then of course, we got the call from Vic and Saul, headed here to the colony and once we mopped up the mess, we were safe again, but our numbers had dropped dramatically. 

Now I’m lying here in bed, Greg’s slow even breathing is relaxing me like it always does, and I’m writing in a journal. Telling you a love story that fills my heart up with so much warmth and happiness I don’t see how everyone doesn’t just _know_ that we’re together. I love him so much that when I stop to think about it hard enough, it almost physically hurts. I’ll put this journal away, come back to bed, snuggle with Greg and fall asleep. Tomorrow we’ll wake up and prepare to go hunting for their nest. I’m ready! I think it’s about time that we started taking some action rather than just reacting. I have a good feeling about this, and if I die during one of the missions, I know it’ll be in the service of my country… or rather, this small group of people I’ve decided are family. In a perfect world, Greg and I will go together and travel hand in hand to whatever comes next. But if he outlives me, Puck, I need you to take care of him. He’s tough as nails, but his heart is something special and I need to know that he’ll be okay without me. Like I said in the letter you read before this, I’d trust you with my family if it came to that. Puck, Greg is my family. He’s my world, and I’m trusting you with him.

I know you won’t let me down.

~*~

Puck closed the journal and wiped the tears off his face. He wasn’t able to stop them from falling, and quite frankly, he hadn’t tried. After having read the journal, so many things made sense. Robbins said Greg’s love filled his heart up so much he didn’t know how people just didn’t know. Puck didn’t know how they didn’t know either. Looking back at all the time he knew Tony and Greg, all the fond looks, the number of times he saw them together, the way they just seemed to know what the other was saying even without speaking words. He’d joined in on the fat jokes and the mom jokes, and so did Carl and eventually, at least once, so did Victor. It seemed cheap now, like they were stealing something away from the two of them. He was sure Tony hadn’t seen it that way, but that’s how it felt now.

He wished he’d known about them. He’d have been cool, he’d have given them all the support they needed and maybe even been able to cover for them if the need arose. 

Love. It’s something everyone needs to feel and Tony and Greg had it in spades. Tony’s superhuman strength in the jail made total sense now. His adrenaline must have been jacked up to a hundred! Then he ran through the halls with Greg in his arms and he wasn’t even breathing heavy anymore. All of his focus had been on getting Greg out of that jail. 

Puck’s heart pinched at the thought that their bodies were still there, locked away in the darkness of that place with those monsters roaming all around it. Robbins had been knocked clear across the hall, his body wasn’t even near Muldoon’s. Puck’s eyes stung with tears as their last moments slid into his mind again.

_”Tony?” Greg had whimpered._

_“Yeah?” Tony replied, not losing focus._

_“Hey,” a tiny broken sound that carried immeasurable amounts of fear and love combined._

“GUH!!” Puck growled and stood up off the couch. Fuck his aching leg; he didn’t care about Tanya’s rule to stay off of it. He needed to talk to Michael. Now that things were settled, they needed to have a memorial for all those they’d lost, and if Samuel Puck had anything to say about it, Anthony Robbins and Greg Muldoon would be at the top of the list. Their bodies may be entombed in concrete and plaster, but Puck would be damned if he was going to let their love stay in the dark.

He looked down at the journal as he stepped out into the bright sunshine of a midsummer day. 

“Don’t worry buddy,” he said fondly. “I gotcha.”

END


End file.
